[jon boy]

they are playing here soon. its gonna be fun.

[dazedcola]

I saw their original 80s lineup in boston this wednesday and I too was a little reluctant if it would be as good as others said, but guess what ? IT WAS EVEN BETTER. They had the disturbing images on a screen behind them, gibby manipulated his voice into a dentist drill and the band was tight as hell. Paul leary's guitar gave dissonant shrieks into the air as gibby blasted away into a saxaphone(who knew he could play?) . The show was really intense like a 21st century acid test and their whole stage presence carried this evil vibe that oozed out from their amplifiers. Id see them again in a heartbeat.

[Rob Instigator]

fucking awesome dazedcola. buttholes warped me.

[Seandi]

Rather spend half the money to see Dinosaur

[Inhuman]

They played here last night. I'm bummed that I'm dead broke and don't get to see them. Among that, I'm missing Jesus Lizard, teenage jesus and the jerks, Os Mutantes, and Faust. Fuck.

[Toilet & Bowels]

maybe you'll be able to catch boston, or black oak arkansas when they tour?

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

Been listening to them a lot lately. It's a shame I didn't skip class to see 'em play last year. Oh well...

I don't know how I feel about Weird Revolution... definitely not their best moment.

[Pelle]

haha, I didn't even knew they still play.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

This Juggalo on slsk is downloading all my BS albums. That's what's up.

[atsonicpark]

weird revolution is garbage. Everything after hairway kinda sucks, aside from INDEPENDANT WORM SALLOON which I honestly think is their best album (aside from Hairway), very strange eh? I mean, INDEPENDANT WORM SALLON is the guitar album. THE guitar album. "DUST DEVIL" .. wow. Has a better 4 minute guitar solo ever been recorded? How did they manage to record an album that was meant to be commercial as fuck and make it AMAZING? You've got Al Jourgenson on the thing, you've got (guitar god) Helios Creed on the thing; this was the time when Boredoms was playing Lollapalooza and doing the major label thing, too. Sigh. Major labels used to be kinda... cool? I mean, there was a bidding war -- a bidding war -- at one point for the rights to release Beefheart's stuff, on a major label. Let's not forget one of the strangest trilogies of major label albums ever: Mr. Bungle's 3 GREAT (especially DISCO VOLANTE) albums on Warner Bros.

Anyway, WHO WAS IN MY ROOM LAST NIGHT is the perfect example of a sound that is both commercial/radio friendly and still rocks. You can write creative, SMART, good music, without dumbing it down too much -- though it was certainly a departure from the hazy, psycho-delic stuff of Butthole's early days, it still had its share of insane moments, all it did was make the guitar a lot louder and in your face -- it was produced by a Led Zepplin dude!

WHO WAS IN MY ROOM ended up being a Guitar Hero song. GOOFY'S CONCERN (with lyrics like "I don't give a fuck about the FBI, I don't give a fuck about the CIA", etc) was used in an SNES commercial (seriously. it's on youtube). If I remmeber correctly, it wasn't for any one game, I think it was for stuff like STUNT RACE FX, Super Metroid, DK Country, and shit like that, just this overarching "we're Nintendo. Our games rule. We have an attitude. We censored blood in Mortal Kombat and LOTS of people think that everyone bought a Genesis specifically to play a bloody version of the game. And that was probably true, as insane and ridiculous as that sounds today.") Can't forget HURRICANE NEDDY episode of the Simpsons wherein Rod was a "SURFER!" of the Butthole variety, probably thanks to the success of this album.

Now, nothing will beat their early days. The two drummers who looked alike, played alike -- in unison -- and smoked Elvis's and/or JFK's toenails to get themselves high, whatever. IF YOU ALL HAVEN'T SEEN BLIND EYE SEE SALL DVD OR VHS, GET THAT MOTHERFUCKER. JOE: IT'S PROBABLY OIN CINEMAGEDDON. I DUNNO. I MIGHT BE ON BTJUNKIE. BUT IT'S AWESOME. I HAVE ITY ON DVD-DVD. LIKE AN ACTUAL DVD. IT'S LIKE 40 MINUTE SLONG AND I SPENT LIKE $15 ON IT. IT WAS WORTH IT. FORGET NIRVANA LIVE AT REDDING. THIS IS THE DVD OF THE YEAR. EVEN THOUGH IT CAME OUT 9 YEARS AGO ON DVD.

All in all, my favorite album is HAIRWAY. I have always had a soft spot for PIOUGH'D, which I thought was just ridiculous but surprisingly, perhaps, entertaining. One big dumb 45 minute joke. But hey, they'd done big dumb jokes before (REMBRANDT PUSSYHORSE) which I loved.

PSYCHIC..POWERLESS..ANOTHER MAN'S SAC is another favorite, it's just screaming for a good remaster, eh? I think it would be my favorite if remastered. Which is probably a weird thing to say, but it's so tinny and cruddy that I feel like I haven't really heard the record completely/properly, you have to dig through the muck to really hear it, and a lot of the songs sound the same unless you pay close attention, cuz of all the fuzz. But I have spent many fucked-up nights combing through it with a, uh, comb.. as well as putting it under a microscope. Nay, a telescope. It was like a paramecium. It was worth it. Fucking badass album!

LOCUST is their most popular one, but it just flat-out doesn't move me like a lot of their stuff. HAIRWAY is the one. They went out of their way to write real songs on this one. Like, really really real real songs. Unholy guitar noise, genius vocals, and the band had melodies.

I think this band followed a similiar career trajectory, and sound, as Boredoms at times. I have often heard, and called them myself, the "Japanese Butthole Surfers". yOU GOT your guitar god (Seeichi Yamamoto and Paul Leary are up there with Andy Gill and John Fahey and Robert Fripp and zoot Horn Rollo, definitely. You got the multiple drummers. you got the insane, often improvised, noisey as fuck noise rock on their early shit, their conceptual party records (POP TATARI isn't too far removed from most of Buttholes stuff), but then they slowly became a bit more... I wouldn't say "normal" (CHOCOLATE SYNTH!).. but.. "listenable to people who don't necessarily want to listen to a bunch of noise"... SUPER AE is kinda like Buttholes' INDEPENDNAT WORM SALLON, epic as hell and it sounds GREAT, though obviously they kinda followed a more DRUM-my path, as opposed to a more GUITAR-y path.

You know what separates the bands though?

MELODIES.

Christ almighty do the Surfers have surprisingly compelx, intelligent songwriting AND melodies.What a smart band. For a bunch of supposed drugged-out burn-outs (okay, not supposed, they definitely have smoked some toenails), they sure knew how to write melodies and vocal hooks that were catchy and fun without being cheesy and dumb.

So yeah, a band that rocks, is weird, is smart, is inspiring (Paul Leary invented that style -- which you never hear anyone ripping off. Why? It's inimitable! Lots of people ripped off, oh, Andy Gill -- when you have bass/drums holding down the rhythmic fort, you can kinda play around the beat all day; Andy Gill, to me, was kinda just doing a similiar thing to PiL, and it wasn't DIFFICULT, but you had to be a smart guitarist to accomplish it. On the other hand, smart or not, PAUL LEARY's guitar playing .. well, if someone were to hold down the whammy bar and play those single string things, those unorthodox "sounds-like-he's-gonna-f-cuk-up-but-DOESN'T!" lines, those weird ass made-up chords, and -- my favorite -- the surprisingly delicate but still bent effects-heavy whammy-ed lines. Listen to JIMI! Listen to JINGLE OF A DOG'S COLLAR. This guy wasn't disonnant -- well, not always; he was downright delicate and -- here's that word again -- MELODIC.

For a "noise rock" band they sure knew how to write some pretty pretty songs.

[atsonicpark]

one request, over on prindle's site, there's a reader comment in the review for SALLON...

mick.lotta@swipnet.se
For a long time i rated this album as much as their earlier stuff until i got hold of the demo material they presented to Capitol records. John Paul Jones really messed up this album! He didn't understand what the Buttholes were. The original versions of "Dust Devil" and "Goofy's Concern" are sheer brilliance.



does anyone know where I can attain the "original versions" of those songs? I know they're on slsk but I don't know what to look for (also, there's a surprising lack of Surfers stuff on the web, info-wise). Maybe I'll just type in
"demo" after each song title.You never know what mgiht happen..

[gualbert]

Cool review man!

I have a BS demo from 81, on tape.
The sound is super crappy (even for a punk band), coming out from one speaker only (on purpose?) most of the time, and sometimes so low that i can't hear anything without headphones.

So i guess that's why no one puts it online.

[atsonicpark]

heheh yeah, the demo I'm referring to.. I have no idea when it would've come out.. 94 maybe?

[ann ashtray]

I seem to remember Gibby saying something not all too long ago about wanting to do a new album. I know he specified wanting to do something "noisy". Should be interesting.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

ASP

Psychic... Powerless is my favorite. I love the production on it as is. I don't really think the songs sound too similar. To each his own, I guess. I'd love to see that SNES commercial if you get bored enough to track it down. Or maybe I'll give it a go. Will get the DVD too somehow. In time, in time.

[atsonicpark]

The songs don't sound similiar, but the fuzziness and low volume of the production makes them not stand out as much as they should because the production is poor, if you're not paying attention. Hell, LICK MY DECALS OFF BABY is one of my favorite albums of all time and even I can tell that after a certain point the songs probably will blend together to someone not paying attention, since the songs follow similiar formulas (even the song with the brooms sweeping in polyrhythms in separate speakers) and the production doesn't allow for anything to stick out. There should be points on DECALS where the bass is bumped up for a part - like a bass solo.. the marimba should have been given more room.. of course I can tell the songs in PSYCHIC.,. POWERLESS.. apart, but the reception of the album overall isn't as strong as many of their other albums precisely for the fact that most people probably don't notice all the melodic subtelties and creative songcraft because all the songs are produced the same way, instead of letting certain parts to stick out.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I guess it is a little quiet. It just has my favorite tracks on it. Aside from Pepper, I think Electriclarryland is pretty under-appreciated too. Jingle of a Dog's Collar is my jam.

 

[easyrazors]

I saw them in the mid to late 80s I think, before I knew their stuff very well. It seemed... interesting. Autopsy films projected over them. It made me seek more.

The Gibby album has some good stuff on it - I really like Superman.

[Derek]

Anyone else out there think that the Butthole Surfers are a bit dogshit?

[Cooking With Satan]

Originally Posted by Derek

Anyone else out there think that the Butthole Surfers are a bit dogshit?

No.

Just assholes.

I mean.

No, just assholes.